The former vice president doubled down on his defense of the Bush administration's use of such techniques, calling the Senate's recent report "seriously flawed."
Senators meeting in a rare Saturday session had earlier voted to extend their deadline until midnight Wednesday, but they managed to pass the spending measure Saturday night by a 56-40 vote.
Civil rights leaders and other activists are marching in Washington, D.C., following the shooting deaths of blacks by police officers. NPR's Scott Simon speaks to reporter Hansi Lo Wang on the scene.
The Senate voted late Saturday to pass a bill that will fund the government through the end of the fiscal year. NPR's Rachel Martin talks to NPR's Mara Liasson about the rare Saturday session.
The Senate is poised to pass the trillion-dollar spending bill that narrowly cleared the House this week, but anger about the measure from both parties has delayed the proceedings.
The end of the 113th Congress means a lot of goodbyes for retiring members and for those who lost in November. That means, at least for a moment, partisanship took some time off on the Senate floor.
One of the many policy riders tucked inside the trillion-dollar spending bill reverses a rule that long-haul truckers take two nights off for every 70 hours they drive. Safety groups are angry.
The long-serving Democrat's office didn't give details on Rep. John Dingell's condition, other than to say he was under observation and "resting comfortably."
Passing the spending package took intense lobbying from the president to get 60 Democrats on board, and persistence by soon-to-be-Speaker John Boehner to fend off the most Republican representatives.
Faced with uncertainty over Congress meeting its deadline to approve a bill, the House's leadership decided to vote on both a long-term spending bill and a stop-gap continuing resolution.